I, Zombie

I could feel their fear, the little girl, the teenager, the old man. It shimmered in the air around them, almost vibrating. Making my flesh tingle – well, where there was flesh. Between life and undeath, I had been through a lot.

I hate dogs.

Looking at the little girl made my chest tighten with anticipation, with hunger, with an insatiable hunger, a hunger I’d never had in life. Since I had woken up a couple of weeks ago, lying in my unearthed coffin, the lid torn off and my eyes opening to a clear night lit with stars, I had been so hungry. Always so hungry. No matter how many of my colleagues I ripped apart with my teeth, scared accountants and terrified file clerks who could have sworn I had died I still couldn’t fill that empty feeling. I devoured them fresh, on the spot. Raw, like sushi. Like warm, drippy sushi. But they weren’t enough. I needed more, always more. Maybe it was in life I wasn’t eating the right things. Noodles, brocolli, cous cous, chicken. Those foods, there was no comparison to the ecstasy that human flesh brought: the chewiness of lungs, the crunchiness of bones and the blood...the oozing of warm blood down my chin as I squeezed a still pulsing heart.

That was the best. 
The girl whimpered and the teenage boy was yelling something but I couldn’t make it out. My ears didn’t work so well anymore, especially not the one that stupid dog bit off between my death and making it to the morgue.

The old man swayed a little on his feet, I could feel the vibrations of their hearts beating in their fragile frames. Thump thump thump thump. The old man’s wouldn’t last much longer. He’d be an easy meal, that one, I wouldn’t even have to chase him or anything. I hadn’t tried an old man before. I wondered if he’d be a bit tougher. More grisly. I’d find out soon enough. Looking at the little girl, I wondered if she’d be more tender than the weedy little money men I’d been chowing down before. I felt my mouth pool with saliva. Actually it could have been blood, bile, I didn’t know. It was wet. Yeah, maybe little girls would satisfy me. Maybe she’d taste sweeter, her muscles peeling off the bone like a well cooked lamb shank.

I grunted as my head jerked back. Something hit me…a remote control. It bounced off my temple and I looked from the boy to the remote and back again. He didn’t need that anymore, not since the power went out. I watched his mouth move as he waved the bat at me some more, making the air shift. Movement. He must have been yelling. Looking at his mouth, he was definitely yelling. Waving the bat at me, telling me to get out of their house. Telling me he’d kill me. Empty threats, he couldn’t kill me. Not with that. Looking around the room, the windows boarded up, blankets scrunched up on the sofa and floor, empty canned food tins littering every surface. They weren’t a threat at all. They’d only survived as long as they had by hiding, camping out here and hoping all the monsters outside would go away. They weren’t fighters, they were barely even survivors. And we weren’t going away. There were more like me every day. Undead, waking up from their death. They weren’t getting buried anymore. A pack of teenagers had eaten all of the morticians.

Tears streamed down the little girl’s face, it looked like she was howling. The old man hugged her to him, stroking her hair. But it didn’t stop her. Man, all that air movement, all that noise. Some of the others could still hear fairly well, the ones lucky enough to have made it from death to burial intact. Well, if they were buried. Some were waking up undead right there in their beds. I was eating my old boss Mr. Zucker at his home and his dead wife sat up in the bed and just watched, before calmly getting out of bed, walking down the stairs and out into the night. In her nightie. Woman scared the hell right out of me.

For a minute.

But the noise didn’t matter, all that vibration, the house was probably lit up like a beacon.

It would bring others soon. Or now. There was a roar and something slammed against the front door. Clearly they didn’t realise it was unlocked. And ajar. Half a dozen undeads staggered into the house, jaws snapping together, stretching out their necks that were stiff from rigamortis, stumbling on their rigid, unbending joints. Blood smeared down the front woman’s face and dress, and the man behind her had an intestine draped over his shoulder. Embarrassing, really. Did I look like that? I looked at the family, and then back at the undeads. The woman’s eyes fell on the humans, she roared, stretched out her arms and lunged toward them. I reached forward, grabbed her hair (which ripped out in my hand) and pushed her to the ground. She wasn’t getting my food. I was hungry, and they were mine. I was here first! She screeched, and the next one lurched forward at the family, but she grabbed his leg, twisted, and it fell off. Couldn’t have been very secure to begin with. Clearly she didn’t want him getting them either. The other few undeads wavered, licking their lips as they looked at the family, but they shifted their gaze to the two on the floor, shrieking and scratching at each other. The boy stepped forward and swung the bat at us, he smashed it against the coffee table as if proving he meant business. He yelled at us, pointing out the door.

His pointing finger was shaking. His eyes widened in what looked like horror as behind me, the house was flooded with zombies. A crowd of undeads, I don’t know how many of them staggered inside. They were going to overrun the place. The wild pack was going to take my meal. I was here first. They were mine. I deserved-

The old man gripped the little girl’s shoulders and shoved her at us. At me. One second she had been over on the other side of the room and the next I had my hands around her shoulders, fingernails gripping into the soft, warm flesh under her cotton dress. She was mine, all mine.

The boy’s focus was lost. He turned to the old man and shoved him, hard. He was screaming, yelling at him. He couldn’t believe the man had done that. How could he do that. That was all it took, that moment of lowering their guard, forgetting what was in the room with them was all it took to be overrun. I didn’t stay to watch the carnage, as their blood splattered against the wall. Even I heard the screams.

I didn’t stay, I had my prize. I had a fistful of the girl’s dress in one purpling, rotting hand and her wrist in the other and hauled her out, through the kitchen into the overgrown backyard as quickly as I could. Anywhere, away from the others. They couldn’t have her. Oh the anticipation, I wondered what she would taste like. Like sugar, maybe? Would she be sweet like a lollipop? Would she be cinnamony? Surely she would rip to pieces easily. Her heart was surely beating fast. I couldn’t wait to hold it, hot and wet in my hand before ripping it apart with my teeth.

She pulled at her arm, trying to free herself but I wouldn’t let go, couldn’t give her up. Suddenly her body went limp and she fell like a dead weight onto the long, weedy grass. I looked at her, she hadn’t fainted. Her eyes were open, wide, fearful. I’d never had kids of my own, but I knew this trick, I’d seen brats do it in shopping centres all the time. Parents would tell their kids no so the kid would drop to the floor, limp like a rag doll, impossible to move. Until they said yes.

Clever girl.

I pulled at her arm, her limp, floppy arm. Fine. I didn’t care, I would have my meal. Her wide, fearful eyes stared at me as I bent my stiff body down, put my hand around her other wrist and started dragging her across the grass. Within a metre she had scrambled to her feet, looking fearfully at the grass. What was wrong with the grass? I raised my gaze and looked around the backyard. I caught glimpses of silver hidden in the weeds. There was silver all throughout the yard. What was it? And what was that mound over in the corner. I squinted at it, trying to see better. My eyes widened. It was bodies. A great pile of bodies. Twenty, maybe thirty of them. Dead bodies. I mean already dead bodies. Undead bodies with no heads. Their heads were in a smaller pile beside it. I looked back at the little girl I was holding the wrist of. While I was distracted, she had moved. Her other hand held a rope. She yanked it hard and I heard metal skid and snap into place. All over the yard saws that had been lying flat in the grass snapped to attention, their rusted teeth aimed at the sky. With a grunt she shoved her shoulder into my chest. I stepped back, my foot hitting a saw handle and I lost my balance, fell over backward. I heard the saw slice me open, more than I felt it. My shirt ripped and there was a squelching noise as the back of my neck, my spine was severed. The little girl stood over me, panting, wiping her tears from her eyes with the back of her fist.

I couldn’t move. She raised her foot above my head. And I remember thinking, before she slammed it into my forehead and my head bounced across the garden…maybe she was a fighter, after all.